In 30s but parents still interfeering in life

Sorry, this is a very long post, but I feel that I have to give some background to set my points in some context.

I want to talk about my parents. It's a long story but to summarise in brief there is a lot of difficult history between us. I would say that they are toxic. They would like to have a very close relationship with me. Actually to be more precise they would like to return to the co-dependent relationship that we once had. However, I do not want that. They were very controlling and interfered in every aspect of my life. My parents are not very social and put too much emphasis on my place in their lives. I find this hard. Now I am in my mid 30s and I live away from them and lead my own life. I try to distance myself as much as I can. I still care a lot about them, but if I let them into my life they will return to their old ways. I called my parents at the weekend. I lived with my parents until I was in my late 20s. I spent a lot of time with my mum during those years. However my mum was over protective. For this reason, and because she needed me, she made it hard for me to leave home or to socialise with people my own age. Recently I have been reducing the frequency of my telephone calls. But now my mum has started quizzing me about what have been doing and where I've been recently. It sounds innocent, but I know her very well and so I know her motive. She wants to know if I am seeing a girl or what the reason is for reducing the frequency of my calls. I don't want to get upset with her. Partly I feel this will give her the power she is looking for. Partly I am still scared of her. She has always controlled me through fear. She has a bad temper and I was on the receiving end of that a lot when I lived with my parents. I'm really not sure how to handle this best. Generally I offer very little information. However I have never been able to lie to my mum and she has a knack of asking very pointed and direct questions. My dad also annoyed me this week by asking “if I am planning to have a holiday this year”. Again, it sounds like a very innocent question. But I know what he means. My parents have felt for many years that I work too hard. When I lived at home, work took over my entire life. But that was part choice, I had big ambitions and I knew what I needed to do to achieve them. Partly had nothing else in my life. I had no friends, since they made that hard, and I was deeply depressed about other family issues. For years they nagged me about my work. My dad was by far the worst. He went on a crusade about it. It's ironic really because he works very hard himself. Actually I think this is part of the reason. He probably feels that if he can “correct” me this means that he must be healthy himself. These days I still work long hours each week. But no more than any of my peers and I have various hobbies and other interests. What is more it is not an addition, as they imply. But again, that's ironic as my parents suffer from addition problems. For some reason, however it really upsets me when my dad interferes with this. Probably this is because it takes me back to childhood years, where I was acutely aware that I was not the son he hoped for. My choices in life have never suited him. But he should just accept them and not interfere. Does any one else experience similar problems? Also does anyone have any tips for dealing with these issues? I don't want to upset my parents but I do want to improve the situation for their sake and mine.

First I must ask, do your parents want you to be happy and find someone special? I am in sort of a similar situation. I am in my early 20s and find that my parents want me to still be a huge part of their lives, yet I still want to have my own life. I find that when I want to meet a girl, I feel like I am betraying them, because I am sort of living a secret life and not being honest with them about what I am doing. So for that reason, when I am living at home (I live away at college when school is in session), I do not even go out. It is just too exhausting, having to explain where I am going, who I am going to see, how I know them, etc. I know they will let me go wherever, but I just can't take the questioning, so I just don't even bother. So I know how hard this can be. But my advice is to just go for it, go out and meet people, and just be honest with your parents, tell them you need your own social life. I still have to work on my own situation. I have some weird internal issues with myself where I find it hard to talk about girls with my parents, I really don't understand it, but I think it might subconsciously be about me feeling I'm betraying my parents if I get a girlfriend (they want me to have a girlfriend too which makes it confusing for me). So just try and be happy my friend.

I had my mom do something similar with a slightly different reason/context/questions. I would end the phone call as soon as she started being inappropriate. She learned slowly that if she wanted to talk to me she needed to be appropriate. It was up to me to set the boundaries/limits with her and stick to them. Just because your mom asks you questions doesn't mean that you have to answer them. I found it much easier to do this over the phone. Pick a topic you don't want to talk about and end your calls with her when she brings it up. You have to be consistent with her in setting the limit. It is your life. They only have a right to the information about it that you want to share with them. Good luck.

I don't think you can help whether you do/do not hurt your parents, that is based on their attitudes, thoughts and feelings. I would just do your best to live your life as you want and start putting up "simple" boundaries, especially when talking on the phone, saying things like, "I am not going to answer that, Mom" and then changing the subject. Try to get your mother used to you calling her rather than she you by starting a conversation you initiate with information/news, whatever you want to share on your terms. If she calls though and starts the 3rd degree, make an excuse for why you have to get off the phone (set a timer to go off and when it rings tell her your dinner's ready or you are going out to meet a friend and don't want to be late, etc.) and then give her a breezy, "I'll talk to you later! Bye!" and hang up.

Your father may/may not be disapproving of you; he may just be trying to live his life "over" through you, do things differently he wishes he'd done in his life, etc. Tell him you are happy with your life, enjoying your job, etc. and he will look "silly" if he argues with you? If someone says they're happy, you have to agree, you can't tell them how they feel? Be aware of and stay close to how you feel and in places you are not sure, come up with pat statements/answers such as "I have to figure that out for myself" and just keep repeating that/whatever, like a wall against opinions you haven't asked for/don't want.

It's perfectly fine, at your age to not answer a question.
My parents want to rule my life (still!) and I have been in the situation of evading and evading to no avail (they don't understand subtle). Finally I have had to be blunt and say "it really is none of your business". Because it's not.

Have boundaries in your life. Then, as googley said, your parents can choose to have some relationship, or no relationship with you depending on if they respect those boundaries.

I have this issue with my mother, though it is much better now than it used to be. (After years of me implicitly and occasionally explicitly making it clear that I'm going to draw and keep my boundaries, she has backed off somewhat.)

When she attempts a guilt trip or other sort of manipulation, I refuse to engage and move the conversation in another direction. When she asks questions I don't want to answer, my stock replies include, "I don't know," "We'll see," "One day at a time," "I'll let you know if I have any news on that front," etc. But I don't have a problem with small lies to keep her out of my business. Why haven't you called lately? Been busy at work (even if I haven't been). Are you seeing anyone? No (even if I am).

Occasionally I will have to just tell her that I don't want to talk about something, or that it's my personal business. If there's something that we continually argue about (like your dad thinking you work too much), I will just tell her every time she brings it up, "We're not going to end up agreeing on this. Let's talk about something else." Then I change the topic.

Just remember that however it feels, your parents do not have the power over you that they had when you were younger. So do not give them any more power than they actually have. Good luck. I have found in my own case that things have gotten a lot better over time.

Similar situation here, lived at home until my mid-20s and had a very stunted social life due to it. There's so much good advice in the posts above. You can change this over time, but it is mostly about changing yourself and the way you react to them. They will always (in my experience) keep pushing for things to go back to the way they were.

Keep setting boundaries and creating space for yourself. Don't return phone calls promptly, don't answer any question you don't want to. "I'm not sure" is an ambivalent response to a lot of questions.

You are on the right track

I can't say I relate, my parents kicked me out, in a nice way, or something.

If I were in your situation I would communicate with them all of the things you have communicated with us here. I imagine you already have, but if it's still a problem for you I think that means they either do not get how important this is to you or they care more about their own agenda. Either way I think it's understandable since you are their child. What this means to me is that they really care about you but they are also broken people, for whatever reason they struggle with letting you become an adult, and so they don't know how to appropriately support you.

It's going to take a lot of time but be patient with them. Realize that this is something they struggle with, know that they don't mean to hurt you, and know that you can help them with this. If they do something that bothers you it's okay to put your foot down and if they are hurting you it's okay to tell them that. In fact I think it's very loving to tell someone when they've hurt you. I hope can you find peace about this and improve your relationship with them.

I'm really grateful to everyone for the support and excellent advice!! I will think more about where my boundaries should be on various issues and ensure that I do not allow them to cross those boundaries. Use of vague or evasive responses will help too when they begin pushing things. Several people mentioned that their parents held back their social lives. I totally agree. In my experience this has made it much harder to make friends and develop romantic relationships. Coming to this late I lack experience and judgement.

arachnophobia.kid, yes, I think they care more about their own agenda and in many ways they are broken. It's hard because they were excellent parents during the early part of my childhood. I am very grateful for that. But things have been bad for so long. They have such a narrow view of the world and their opinions are so rigid and fixed. They cannot see their problems or put things into proper perspective.

rolan86, they would say that they want me to find a happy relationship. But in reality they don't. They do not like anything which threatens to complete with them for my time, energy, love, etc..